It is very appropriate to describe Simpson's life as "tragedy is the destruction of what is valuable in life." However, this film does not only focus on Simpson himself, but extends it to the times before and after, and depicts the encounters of the general public in detail.
The film actually has two main lines: Simpson's growth, development, and American racial conflict. In the first half of the documentary, the two are discussed alternately, with a clear distinction. In the background of racial conflict, Simpson has grasped his own destiny. Through unremitting struggle, exquisite figure and wisdom far beyond ordinary people, he has won a great future for himself. In a way, he distanced himself from his compatriots: those black compatriots who were brutally enforced and oppressed. Simpson was accepted into his circle by the white elite and gained money, status, fame...
Everything seemed so logical - if his wife hadn't been killed by him. The plot hurried up here, and the director opened the curtain of this good play.
When the plot entered the middle and late stages, with the unfolding of the murder verdict, things that were originally distinct were entangled. Simpson's lawyers successfully dragged the case into a quagmire, wiping the sludge of racial conflict on the court; and the documentary also impartially restores the words and strategies of key witnesses and lawyers, trying their best to make people understand why the case is happening. developed to this point. Infighting among lawyers, black-white clashes on the sidelines, the dark past of key witnesses, and jury members' historical issues all contributed to the wailing in the courtroom of the victim's family and the wanton celebration of Simpson's acquittal . The fast-paced advance of the plot, combined with the full and full interview materials, is just right, which is amazing.
The "Made in America" in the title of the film does not mean that Simpson is American. What it really means is that all the aspects surrounding the Simpson case are the product of the joint cultivation of American history and society - as for the Simpson case, it is just the biggest and brightest "fruit".
The director takes Los Angeles in the 1940s as an entry point, and shows the racial discrimination of whites against blacks and the accompanying suppression and bullying, especially the police system. Extorting confessions by torture and rude law enforcement have long made black people complain, and no one knows what the consequences will be. And this historical background not only brings out the excellence of Simpson, but also lays the groundwork for fifty years later.
The two main lines mentioned in the previous article are actually accompanied by conflicts: Simpson does not consider himself black, and never speaks for his disadvantaged compatriots who desperately need a voice box. And that conflict turned upside down during the Simpson trial, creating a contrast: More than 70 percent of blacks found Simpson innocent and saw his case as an outlet for the humiliation suffered by blacks over the past two hundred years. Whether it was the solidarity of blacks on the sidelines, the emotional vote of black people on the jury, or the contemptuous remarks of the decisive witness - the white police officer Foreman - against blacks, all of them are rooted in the conflict of racial discrimination within the United States. figurative performance. The director perfectly blends the two apparently incompatible melodies in the middle and late stages of the film to play such a deep and heavy work that the film goes far beyond Simpson himself and touches the scars of America at that time.
But in any case, we need to focus back on Simpson, the two-faced superstar who was bound by fame and eventually self-destructed.
Simpson used to have everything, but he sacrificed everything with his own hands. The reason why he would kill his wife, on the one hand, was due to his dark side, and on the other hand, he could not accept that he would fail, no matter in love or wherever. This can explain why he is personable to most people, and kills his wife. When he got away with murder charges, as his former best friend said, he had completely lost the bottom line - even murder can be avoided, not to mention other things? All you can see is a poor man who is addicted to his past glories and doesn't want to wake up. The masses spurned him, his family stayed away from him, and his friends never visited him again. Many years later, he was imprisoned for robbery and other crimes, and the ending was sad, but not surprising.
All in all, from a sad but restrained perspective, this documentary uses a world-famous star to show the social landscape of racial issues spanning more than sixty years in the United States. It goes beyond the limitations of the original title and is very worthwhile. Look.
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